The Lockerbie fiasco is only a pothole on the road to independence – and it
can’t come soon enough, says Simon Heffer

We should admire the rubber-shielded qualities of Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party and First Minister of Scotland. Last week he had to manage a furore created by the decision of his minister of justice to send home to Libya the supposedly dying man convicted of blowing up an aeroplane over Lockerbie 20 years ago. He did what anyone in his situation would have done, and announced that he would be putting a bill through his assembly to enable a referendum on Scottish independence.

This ever-lovable subject had been quiescent for the last year, following the collapse of the Scottish banking sector. It was not just that big employers were in trouble; it was that a potential source of earnings from home and abroad was crippled by almost incomprehensible debt. What now would be the economic powerhouse of an independent Scotland? The whisky manufacturers? The porage industry? The Loch Ness Monster? No wonder things went quiet.

But Mr Salmond, who knows a thing or two about gambling, understands how to read opponents and potential supporters. On the long road to Scottish independence there are never, for him, more than just a few potholes. The financial embarrassments of the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS are trifles compared with the chronic financial embarrassment of Scotland itself. As far as one can tell – and a trawl of databases reveals most of all a reticence about the real figures – the subsidy from other parts of the Kingdom (ie, England) to Scotland is currently at least £22 billion a year. If Mr Salmond and his friends have long been able to contemplate independence while trying to work out an alternative source of income to replace that subsidy, then Sir Fred Goodwin's imploding is hardly going to make any odds to them.

My Scottish friends tell me, and I am sure they are right, that this diversionary tactic of a referendum will come to nothing. A plebiscite to repeal the 1707 Act of Union requires a law to be passed. The SNP does not have an overall majority at Holyrood. Those who from time to time collude in enabling the party to govern Scotland will not do so in a measure such as this. I doubt that would disappoint Mr Salmond. His own bona fides – he went to the polls in 2007 promising such a vote – would be intact. He could point to obstructive forces in other parties who would be refusing to let him keep his word. He could dismiss them as lackeys of the occupying power, or with some such rhetoric. It would go down exceptionally well with his clientele. It would also mean that the nightmare of actually having to govern a seriously poor country like Scotland could be postponed for a further while yet.

However, this expected failure would not be the end of it. We have a general election to look forward to. The Labour Party in Scotland is particularly tribal, but the tribe is declining. Labour was already viewed as having done badly for Scotland, which was why it was booted out in May 2007. It is now viewed even among the tribe as having done a poor job for what still passes for the United Kingdom; something with which many English, Welsh and Northern Irish would agree. Scotland has 59 Westminster seats. At the last election Labour won 41, the Lib Dems 11, the SNP 6 and the Conservative Party just one. The polls suggest that the SNP could win 15 or so seats next time, all at the expense of Labour. Mr Salmond, never one to engage in understatement, has said he believes his party could win 27. That is unlikely to happen. However, even the most rabid unionist concedes that a Tory haul of more than two or three seats would strain the limits of optimism. And then?

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Mr Salmond, if his party cleans up at Labour's expense, and if Labour (as seems likely) is defeated nationally, would be cock of the walk. He would be powerfully placed, too, to say to his people that the traditional enemy – the Conservative Party – was back in power in London. It wouldn't matter what Mr Cameron did or did not promise to do for Scotland: the SNP propaganda machine would go into overdrive. A year after the general election, Mr Salmond and his assembly will be up for election again. A Tory government would be his strongest campaigning tool. A referendum bill might fail now, but it would not necessarily fail after May 2011. So Mr Salmond will see that a two-phase plan – finish off Labour locally, and hope for a Tory victory at Westminster while Scotland comprehensively rejects Conservatism – is his surest route to independence.

Apparently, Mr Cameron and his advisers are still putting together the detail about what to do with Scotland. Far be it from me to offer them advice, but I would like to suggest a couple of considerations. First, a semi-detached part of the United Kingdom that Labour has progressively driven towards independence since 1997 wishes not to be ruled by Westminster but is happy to take (at least) £22 billion in subsidy each year. How fair is that on the English taxpayer? Does Mr Cameron feel he might want to make representations on behalf of the people who, should he get to Downing Street, will have put him there? And, important though the subject of money is, what about the democratic deficit? The party's website promises that a Tory government will address the West Lothian Question and give English MPs a "decisive say" in matters that affect only England. I am not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds promising. It has been suggested in the past that the Speaker be asked to certificate Bills as affecting only England and that those sitting for non-English seats be denied the privilege of voting in such divisions. Leaving aside the constitutional and technical problems of achieving this laudable aim, what would this do for Mr Salmond? How would he represent it to the people of Scotland? What would their response to the removal of this monstrous unfairness be? How will what Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, sanctimoniously calls "Scottish values" regard such an act of equity?

I suspect that when and if a Conservative government did that – and it should – a rubicon would be crossed not in the minds of the Scottish political class, but in the minds of the Scottish people. Mr Salmond and his friends would (cantingly) represent this as a definitive act of rejection by Westminster. So be it. I just hope Mr Cameron will not get cold feet, but would agree with Mr Salmond about the advantages to all concerned of Scotland's leaving the club.

This is not the time to consider the difficulties of what would come next. An ordinary provincial solicitor – for that is what Mr MacAskill is – found himself in the international spotlight for freeing Megrahi. Seldom had one seen and heard a man so out of his depth. That is, for the most part, Scotland's governing class, and Scotland had better get used to it. And the Government in London could then stop interfering, and stop soiling itself as it did in the episode of the bomber; and we could each withdraw to the comfort of our own "values", and see how happy that makes us.